Chase Sapphire Preferred Review: A Must-Have for Travelers

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Full Review

With this card, you can move your rewards to a wide variety of loyalty programs, such as United Airlines or Hyatt, at a 1:1 ratio. This makes it possible to get far more than 1 cent out of each point with strategic redemptions. For travelers who can benefit from these valuable redemption options — and especially for those who delight in finding ways to get the most value out of their rewards — it's a must-have.

How much is a point worth?

Chase Ultimate Rewards® points earned on this card are worth 1.25 cents each when redeemed for travel booked through Chase. However, you can often get a better value by transferring points to the card’s 1:1 transfer partners, then making high-value redemptions. Here are the transfer partners:

Airlines

Aer Lingus.

Air France/KLM.

British Airways.

Emirates.

Iberia.

JetBlue.

Singapore.

Southwest.

United.

Virgin Atlantic.

Hotels

Hyatt.

InterContinental Hotels Group.

Marriott.

In addition to travel redemptions, the card also offers a handful of other, less-valuable redemption options, including cash back, gift cards and merchandise.

Benefits of the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card offers versatility for travelers that's hard to find at a similar price point.

Big sign-up bonus

The card features a generous sign-up bonus: Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's $750 toward travel when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards®. It's an outstanding deal when compared with other cards with similar annual fees — especially when you consider that, with some well-placed points transfers, the bonus could prove even more valuable.

Bonus rewards on travel and dining

With the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, you earn 2 points per dollar spent on travel and dining, and 1 point per dollar on all other purchases. That's not the richest rewards structure around, but it can still offer decent value. For example, if you got 1.25 cents per point, you would effectively have a 2.5% rewards rate on travel and dining.

Chase’s definition of “travel” is also quite broad; in addition to airfare and hotel stays, you can also earn bonus rewards on parking garage fees, bus fares and charges from rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft, for example. And these bonus rewards aren’t just available for travel and dining in the U.S. — they can be earned worldwide.

Transfer partners

This card’s valuable 1:1 transfer partners make it a keeper, especially if you're willing to look for good redemption opportunities. Say you spot a nice deal with one of Chase’s airline transfer partners — maybe a flight that normally costs thousands of dollars going for a mere 50,000 miles plus taxes and fees. With this card, you have the ability to transfer your Chase Ultimate Rewards® points into that airline’s loyalty program and pounce on that deal.

Complementary cards

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is an excellent sidekick, especially when it comes to the other cards in the Chase Ultimate Rewards® family. That’s because you can move points to this card from your other cards that earn Chase Ultimate Rewards®, potentially opening up more redemption options.

Consider the Chase Freedom®, which earns 5% cash back on rotating quarterly categories (on up to the first $1,500 in purchases, upon activation) and 1% cash back on all other purchases. You could potentially move the rewards you earn on that card to the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card. From there, you could get more value out of your points by transferring points at a 1:1 ratio to other loyalty programs or redeeming them for 1.25 cents apiece when booking travel through Chase.

Sapphire Preferred vs. Sapphire Reserve

If you have your eye on the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, you might also be checking out the pricier Chase Sapphire Reserve®. This premium travel card comes with an annual fee of $550 and several rich perks and benefits, including airline lounge access and an annual $300 travel credit. If you travel enough, going for the more expensive option could be well worth the cost.

Why you might want a different card

The perks on the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card aren't particularly simple, and not particularly luxurious, either. As a mass-market travel card, it's right in the middle.

No premium perks

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is an excellent card for travelers in general. But for those who love to travel in style, the more expensive Chase Sapphire Reserve® could be a better fit.

The Chase Sapphire Reserve® comes with a $550 annual fee, and a similarly strong sign-up bonus: Earn 50K bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's $750 toward travel when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards® . You’ll get an annual $300 travel credit and Priority Pass Select access, which gets you into several airport lounges for free and comes with meal credits for certain airport eateries. The card earns 3 points per dollar spent on travel and dining, and 1 point per dollar spent on all other purchases, and points are worth 1.5 cents apiece when redeemed for travel through Chase. The card doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees, and it comes with the same 1:1 transfer partners as the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card.

Not a good deal for cash back

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card’s $95 annual fee might seem a little pricey if you’re not interested in squeezing maximum value out of each point — for example, if you’re planning to redeem your points for cash back at 1 cent apiece.

If cash-back rewards are your endgame, you'll get far better long-term value out of the Citi® Double Cash Card – 18 month BT offer. It offers 2% back: You get 1% back on all purchases made, and another 1% back on all balances paid. Its annual fee is $0. There’s one big downside for international travelers, though: It comes with foreign transaction fees of 3% of each transaction.

Is the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card right for you?

Using the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card just for one simple task — say, earning cash back — would be akin to buying a beautiful Swiss Army knife just to use the corkscrew feature. The card offers outstanding value, but to fully appreciate it, it helps to be a traveler who plans to take advantage of its elegant versatility. If that’s you, this card is an excellent choice.

To view rates and fees of the The Platinum Card® from American Express, please visit this page.

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